Pasco deputies say man washed out girlfriend's mouth with soap

HUDSON— John Vincent Caruso told deputies his parents used to wash out his mouth with soap when he swore. So when his girlfriend kept cursing on Tuesday evening, Caruso said, he reached for the bottle of dish soap.

The two had been arguing at their home on Mary Lou Drive. The girlfriend said Caruso was trying to tell her what to do. Caruso, 26, told her to be quiet and threatened to put soap in her mouth, according to a Pasco County Sheriff's Office report.

A few minutes later, the report said, he came up behind her, stuck a bottle of dish soap in her mouth and squeezed the bottle, sending soap into her mouth and down her shirt. The girlfriend went to her mother's house and called the Sheriff's Office.

Caruso told deputies he had warned her three times to stop cursing so as not to wake the couple's two sleeping children. He said "that's what his parents used to do to him," and even now he does it to himself "out of respect for his parents," the report said.

Caruso was charged with domestic battery and remained Wednesday at the Land O'Lakes jail without bail.